


In Search of Lost Time

by chaos_yet_harmony



Category: Vikings (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 07:23:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3641628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaos_yet_harmony/pseuds/chaos_yet_harmony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I mourn for all the scenes we’ll never get. For all the bits that we were robbed of by every bloody timeskip. For all the little details.</p><p>"There’ll never be an Athelstan nervously getting his first tattoo. There’ll never be Ragnar handing Athelstan an axe and giving him his first lesson. There’ll never be Athelstan listening to Ragnar explaining, then being handed a knife and a piece of wood and told to try to carve his name in runes. No Athelstan having fallen asleep underneath a puppy pile of Ragnarssons." -oneiriad (whose writing is great)</p><p>oneiriad, I gift to thee these four drabbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Search of Lost Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oneiriad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneiriad/gifts).



Athelstan eyed the needle apprehensively. “How exactly is this going to happen?”

Ragnar laughed. “Afraid, Athelstan?”

“I am not afraid,” said Athelstan, though he wasn’t sure whether or not he was lying. “I’m just...wary.”

“Why, do you think it is going to hurt?”

“Will it?”

Ragnar patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry; it will feel just like getting stung by a hornet. Except that you’ll get a pretty picture to remember it by.”

Athelstan had never been stung by a hornet, and he said so.

Ragnar laughed again. “Well, priest, now you are about to learn. Ready?”

“I suppose-- _ah_!”

* * *

“If you want to be a free man,” said Ragnar, “then you have to learn to fight like one.” And that was how Athelstan found himself on his back in the dirt, the wind knocked out of him and Ragnar’s boot on his neck.

“I think we’re going about this the wrong way,” he gasped.

“Yes,” said Ragnar. He pulled Athelstan upright and handed him his shield. “Perhaps I should first have taught you how to _hold_ the axe. Here.” He put the axe into Athelstan’s hand and maneuvered it into the right position. “Now, try to kill me again.”

* * *

Ragnar was many things, but patient schoolmaster was not one of them. He scratched the runes in the dirt, named the letters, and then thrust a piece of wood and a knife into Athelstan’s hands, saying, “Write.”

“Write what?”

“Write anything. Write...write your name.”

Athelstan studied the strange alphabet in front of him. Then he etched eight characters into the wood, and handed it to Ragnar.

“Your name is ‘Athmlstan?’”

Athelstan flushed.

“Never mind, it’s an easy mistake. It’s getting dark now; you’ll try again tomorrow. And after that,” he said, “you teach me your letters. Fair trade?”

* * *

Athelstan woke to a crushing weight on his chest. It took him a few moments to realize that he was a mattress for three of Ragnar’s sons.

“Consider it an honor,” Ragnar said, clearly amused. “They don’t curl up with just anyone.”

“They didn’t curl up _with_ me, they curled up _on_ me.”

“So get up. I promise, they won’t wake.”

Athelstan tried to wriggle free, but he couldn’t. “How do you breathe when they do this?”

“With difficulty.” Ragnar removed Sigurd and draped him over a shoulder. “Better?”

“For breathing, at least,” said Athelstan, and went back to sleep.

 

**Author's Note:**

> And stay tuned for possible expansion into longer fics


End file.
